A corrugated tube is a tubular member having flexibility in an axial direction by being formed to have concave and convex portions alternating continuously along the axial direction, and is widely used as a protector or the like covering a circumference of an electric wire.
A corrugated tube is usually extended and fed from a bundled state and is cut to a required length for use. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technology for length-adjusting and cutting a corrugated tube.
However a corrugated tube is preferably cut at a convex portion. This is because when a corrugated tube is cut at a convex portion, an opening area of the corrugated tube is large, so an electric wire or the like inserted into the corrugated tube can avoid being damaged by coming into contact with an open end of the corrugated tube.
Therefore, various technologies have been proposed for cutting a corrugated tube at a convex portion. For example, Patent Literature 2 proposes a technology to cut a corrugated tube at a convex portion by providing a detector that detects concavity and convexity of the corrugated tube and by driving a cutting blade in response to timing of when the detector detects the convex portion of the corrugated tube. Further, Patent Literatures 3 and 4 propose a technology in which a pair of holding pieces that are formed on a jig are respectively inserted into neighboring concave portions with a convex portion of a corrugated tube therebetween to fixate the corrugated tube, and then the convex portion sandwiched by the jig is cut.